


after.

by scoundrelhan



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Sunsets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-12 00:09:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9046658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scoundrelhan/pseuds/scoundrelhan
Summary: She's not made for this, but she's trying to be.





	

After.  
  
Each day, Jyn wakes up to that word. It haunts her every step. After her father disappeared, after she ran away, after the beach, after the mission. She’s experienced a lot of afters, but on the way to Scarif, she'd made her peace with the fact that she wasn't supposed to be a part of the after this time. And yet, here she is.

There is an after, and Jyn Erso is a part of it.  
  
That is not to say that this after is a place one would wish to be. Yavin is on edge, teetering on the brink of nervous insanity. Everywhere she turns, eyes of the Rebellion are watching, calculating. There'd been an emergency council meeting last night about Princess Leia's capture. Every step forward is another twenty backward, and everyone, especially Jyn, is growing weary of this vicious cycle.  
  
A bunk had been assigned to her almost as soon as they returned from Scarif, but Jyn doesn't know what to do with something like that. It's too permanent, so she takes to wandering. Mostly, she keeps an close eye on Cassian. He hasn't said much about any of the recent news, what should be done, what he will do. Honestly, Jyn has hardly spoken to him since she visited him in medbay after they cleared him for duty. That would be about two weeks ago now. He seems to keep busy and on his ship most days. Sometimes, she'll catch a glimpse of him in the mess hall or in the main hangar, but he vanishes as soon as she tries to reach him.  
  
Jyn understands the need for distance, so she leaves him be. She doesn't speak to many these days either.  
  
So, she's living in the after, but Jyn has also lived in the before, and they’d lost many then. She can't put out the white hot flames of guilt inside of her. The fire burns, and burns, and burns. Jyn should have died on that beach. She remembers every second of it. She can still taste the salt of the ocean as it evaporated, picture the way the earth had folded and crumpled like paper on the horizon, feel the dead weight of cassian's body slumped against her as she struggled with one good leg to keep going, keep pushing. Her leg. She looks down at the brace, and sees Krennic raising his blaster, and - and. Jyn rubs at her eyes until she sees nothing but blinding, swirling color instead.  
  
Tonight is no different than any other. Jyn weaves between rows and rows of dormant x-wings, dodges a few lingering pilots tinkering on their ships and chatting just outside the bay doors before they’re shut for the night. She's learned the lag time between guard shifts, and slips out the maintenance entrance before anyone can stop her.  
  
Jyn hesitates in the shadow of the temple. Yavin nights are softer than its merciless afternoons. The heaviness of the day has been replaced with a faint warmth that curls around her bare arms like a greeting. Cassian's ship is resting where it has been ever since they got back. Cassian's ship isn't really his, but she supposes the higher ups either don't have the heart or don't care enough to impound it. This cargo ship isn’t the original - that one had been blown to bits. This is the one that carried them out. She supposes that matters in some way. In all honesty, the grimy, damaged exterior and fading Imperial insignia just make her nauseous. Sentiment hasn't ever been her thing.  
  
Cassian's silhouette catches her eye as it moves about the main cabin. Her chest aches; she should be watching two figures instead of one, but that's another something that's been left in the before. Death has painted Jyn's world in shades of grey since she was born. It's never felt more real, more solid until now, like every person she has ever loved and lost is standing on the tarmac waiting for her to see them for what they are - shades of a time long past.  
  
The wind whips around her as she moves away from the ancient stone wall, and out into the open. She feels exposed in the evening sunlight. As she gets closer, she notices the loading ramp is down. Jyn jogs up it, steps echoing in the lofty space, and stands in the middle of the floor. She takes in her surroundings. Everything is as she last remembers it, but it's clear someone has been giving this hunk of useless Imperial metal some much-needed maintenance. There are still blood stains everywhere. She doesn't want to know which one of them put them there.

A muffled curse startles her back to reality. Cassian is standing in the cabin doorway, plain undershirt rumpled and untucked, a wrench in his right hand. His entire body deflates with a sigh before he says, "I thought you were Draven."  
  
"No," Jyn replies, quiet, but her heart pounds in her ears, a fluttering drum. "Just me."

She has been a survivor her whole life; she sees the same haunted look in Cassian's eyes as he studies her, and she studies him.

  
"Did you need something?" He asks, rusty, a little flat. He sounds like he hasn't spoken in days. He probably hasn't.

Jyn doesn't know how to answer that. She has no idea what she's doing here. She has no planned words, no explanation for her intrusion other than there's a part of her that misses him in a very selfish, unknown way.

  
"Not particularly," she lies, and it feels cruel even if she doesn't know the truth herself. "I was just taking a walk."  
  
"It’s past curfew,” Cassian says, and there’s a ghost of something that passes across his handsome features. A laugh, perhaps.

The sun has dipped low enough that light is filling the ship, painting the dull walls in a muted brilliance. Cassian moves past her to stand halfway down the ramp, arms at his sides, facing the coming evening. She traces the stiff line of his shoulders, the dip of his belt under the weight of his blaster with her gaze. He still carries himself like a soldier. No unnecessary movements.

"Cassian," Jyn breathes, sighs under her breath, lets herself enjoy the way his name melts on her tongue.  
  
That's what scares her. The truth is that she is afraid of getting used to this, getting used to winning. Most of all, she is afraid of getting used to winning with him. War doesn't care about love, and gods, Jyn's afraid of that, too. She's terrified to love him, terrified of loving this man with his bloody past and present, with his unwavering loyalty, his stubbornness that reminds her too much of herself. She’s terrified to lose him like everyone else. She almost did. She doesn’t know if she can go through that again.

The truth can be a dangerous thing, but then again, so can she. Him, too. She’s so very tired of tiptoeing around this earth in a glass box, keeping everything to herself. She can’t remember who put her inside it, if it was these people who look at her like she’s some sort of miracle, or herself. Jyn can’t find the strength to shatter the glass. Not now. Not here. Not when he’s looking so lost.

She joins him.

The sunset and the forest, sprawling and green as the fields from her childhood, burst into sight as Jyn settles at Cassian’s side. She presses her shoulder against his, his body a warm and sturdy line. After a moment of quiet observation, Cassian turns to face her, his untrimmed hair falling across his forehead.

“Quite the view, isn’t it?” He whispers, strikingly reverent.

“Didn’t think I'd live to see another,” Jyn whispers back.

She can feel the twitch of his hand, the ghost of a touch, against her hip. They’re hovering close enough that she can see the quiet suffering, the loneliness etched into the lines of his cheeks. Jyn senses the weight of the beach, the battle, everything in his perpetual frown. She visits that hell in her dreams, feels the hard-packed sand, smells the salt and the iron. When she wakes up, she can sometimes taste the ocean running red with imperial and rebel blood.

“You said to me that this could be a home,” Jyn says, tilting her head back so she can look him straight into his dark eyes. “It’s not much of one without you.”

A warm palm wraps around her wrist. A thumb presses, soft but firm, against her pulse. The beach may be long gone, but Jyn is not. She wants to fight for those that have been lost. She wants to continue fighting for her father’s dream, and the Rebellion’s. Her fighting will be for an entire galaxy, but it will be for Cassian, too. She wants him back. She can’t imagine anyone else by her side in the coming battle; she wouldn’t be here without him. In the before, she’d been a fighter, but for all the wrong, self-serving reasons. He’d managed to spark something in her, fan a fire she’d tried her entire life to smother. Hope is the best accelerant.

Jyn opens her mouth to say something to that affect. The glass around her is cracking, but Cassian beats her to it.

“You act like i left,” he murmurs, and squeezes her wrist once more like a promise before releasing.

“You have, in your own way. You said to me that I’m not the only one who’s lost everything. Cassian, we all… we both lost our friends back there. I'm not asking for you to move on. I’m not even asking for you to be okay. I’m just asking for you - all of you - to be here,” Jyn implores, and this time, she reaches for him, takes hold of his forearm. “We need you.”

Cassian’s expression is hard to read, his weary face falling into shadow as the sun slowly dips out of sight, but he doesn’t try to pull away.

“We?” He echoes.

“Yes.”

Cassian hums, nods once. She realizes, like a great wave passing over her head, that she wants this. They’re breathing each other’s air, so close Jyn swears she can feel the beat of his heart matching her own. She’s not made for this sort of thing. She came here, searching blind in the dark for something she’s too afraid to face. The ferocity of this feeling inside of her - she can hardly swallow around it. She’s not made for this, but she’s trying to be.

“You’re welcome to stay,” Cassian offers. “If you’d like.”

“Yeah,” Jyn answers, thrill and potential shooting through her veins. “I would like that.”

There are all sorts of afters. Cassian is still far away from himself, and Jyn doesn’t know the right way to help him, but they are together. Jedha, the Council, the beach - they survived all of it together, and they will survive this.

  
The after they deserve will come.

**Author's Note:**

> So, Rogue One...
> 
> I told myself I'd refrain from fix-it fics, so this is more like my brief, loose interpretation of what the original outcome of this movie was before they decided to wreck our lives. Wrote this at about 1am so hope you weren't expecting anything fantastic. Anyway, hope you enjoyed it all the same!


End file.
